


China Journeys

by koalathebear



Category: Original Work
Genre: China, F/M, Gen, Road Trips, Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 05:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: The tale of a girl travelling through China on her own.





	1. The Road to Dali 大理

Today’s bus trip seems interminably long – longer than usual and I’ve been on a few long, bumpy, jarring rides now. 

Travelling in China by bus seems to demand passing through an almost ridiculous number of toll gates. Buying a bus ticket had definitely been worth it. Anyone who made the foolhardy albeit courageous decision to drive themselves around the vast countryside not only had their cars damaged badly by the appalling roads, but the toll fares are ridiculously high. 

Every half hour or so, the bus stops at a toll booth or at a police checkpoint with a bored policeman lolling alongside the road beneath a gaudy beach umbrella whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to affix a chop to the bus's travel documents. It’s almost ridiculous.

Sitting beside me, sharing one seat is a young girl and her little brother – making the seating arrangement extremely cramped to say the least. Looking at the pair, I have a sudden moment of startled realisation. With China’s One Child Policy, I’ve never actually seen an older sister looking after her little brother before. The young girl is quite aloof and cool but extremely protective and tender towards her little brother. She doesn’t seem particularly mindful of his nutrition intake, though. The small boy eats like a horse – it can’t possibly be good for his health to eat that many M&Ms, jellies, chips, lollipops and biscuits when he seems only be around 5 or 6 years of age.

Behind me is a woman with a baby so small it has to be a newborn. She is clearly braless and the front of her blouse is soaked with milk at the nipples. It’s a little strange to see something like this – I feel the same sense of awkwardness I always feel when people don’t close doors when using the toilet – something I seem to encounter a lot in China, even when in a non-rural setting. 

The trip has been a tough one as the bus is extremely stuffy and it becomes very apparent that I am sharing the bus with rural folk, a great many who have never travelled in a car or bus before - the motion of the relatively slow-moving vehicle causing intense nausea and discomfort.

Partway through the journey, I grimace as I hear a horrible retching noise about 2cm away from my ear. Turning around I realise that the woman with a newborn is throwing up into a plastic bag a dangerously close distance away from my head. I automatically lunge forward to move away from the vomiting mother, at the same moment I realise that the young girl on my left is _also_ throwing up – and into a plastic bag!!!!! Revolted, I turn to my right to see that the little girl there sitting next to her mother and is throwing up …

The bus is unbearably stuffy and the sharp, hot, sour odour of vomit is starting to hit me inexorably in heavy, powerful and cloying waves. I try taking shallower breaths, sniffing my _L'Occitane_ Shea Butter hand lotion and frantically forcing myself to think about happy things … About pretty much anything except the heaving, retching sounds on the bus and the smells …

I learn forward to try to help the girl on my left by holding her hair back from her face and offering her some candy and a drink which seems to settle her stomach a little. She looks at me, a little surprised but clearly grateful.

With my mind distracted momentarily, I glance over at the bus conductor who is an interesting individual. When I had boarded the bus, there had been three men smoking. The conductor was also a smoker but I had noticed that he was standing outside smoking while waiting so had asked,"This is supposed to be a non-smoking bus - can't you make them stop?"

Pleasingly, the conductor had immediately got on the bus and told all of the passengers,"Stop smoking or get off the bus". The smokers grizzled and complained that they were afraid that the bus was going to leave soon but the conductor retorted sternly,"You still have 5 minutes - smoke outside!" That problem has been resolved remarkably painlessly. 

The problem now is that the conductor has been standing in the stairwell during the journey and when he wants to cough up phlegm, instead of spitting into a tissue or into a bag, he just spits it onto the floor of the bus! He seems to think that this is acceptable behaviour so long as he uses his foot to rub it into the floor of the bus - spreading it around … Disinfectant but smearage?

Sickened at the sight of the conductor spitting on the floor of the bus, I had made a mental note that when disembarking the bus - to make sure I jump over the top step and straight down onto the ground. To my consternation, during the course of the long journey, the conductor has managed to spit on every single step, each time rubbing it into the ground with his shoe. I’m clearly going to have to risk breaking my neck with the jump if I want to not stop on a contaminated step. 

Feeling more than a little queasy, I find myself hoping most sincerely that he doesn’t have any infectious diseases or we were all going to be in trouble.

Just when I think that that things can’t possibly get any worse, he sits down next to me across the aisle and continues to spit all over the floor at regular intervals. I start to feel decidedly unwell again and debate holding a pack of tissues out towards him helpfully – or perhaps a plastic bag …

The girl on my left is clearly feeling very grateful at having been helped through her nausea and tries to offer me a packet of chips. I decline – very politely but very firmly. There is absolutely no way in hell I am going to be able to eat on this Bus of Bodily Functions.

The girl looks much younger than her actual age, which is 15. She tells me that she lives in a very small town and that this bus journey is her first time away from her hometown. As it’s the first time she’s ever met a foreigner, she almost died of shock when she found out that I am not actually Chinese. Apparently, her classes are all conducted in Mandarin, but she seldom speaks it so she is much more comfortable speaking in dialect than she is in Mandarin. That being said, her Mandarin is much more pure and easier to understand than the Friendly But Overly Phlegmy Bus Conductor.

During the course of my travels, I’ve noticed that Beijing and Shanghai people are much better at identifying me as a foreigner than other places. I’m assuming that it’s because they’re more accustomed to hearing Mandarin spoken by foreigners so they know that that sounds like. In the countryside, they just assume that someone speaking Mandarin with a strange accent is simply from some remote region of China. It also shows how incredibly bad the Mandarin of some Chinese people living in remote areas must be if even my Mandarin is more standard than theirs.

The road is very bumpy but the scenery around the bus is incredibly beautiful. Unique and striking. Green but a different green from other parts of China. How could I ever have even imagined that there could be so many different varieties of green along the same landscape?

Disembarking at a bus station not far from Dali, I stretch my back, arms and legs, feeling exhausted and very drained. Standing there, having been dropped off by another bus are three tousled and very confused-looking British backpackers. They’re all wearing beer t-shirts, can’t speak a word of Chinese between them and look … laddish.

As is often the way in these remote areas, I find myself in the position of de facto translator and guide.

They’re not particularly friendly or grateful so I only translate as much as I really need to and don’t make conversation aside from telling them the following:

"You need to go to that stop".

"The bus is coming soon".

"You need to wait there".

"They say the next bus is coming soon.”

When the next bus pulls up, I put my bag on the bus and the 3 Brits continue to look as stunned and confused as before so I point them to the bus. “It’s this one.” Then I get on the bus.

I meet a lot of people who travel around China without a single word of Chinese and they seem to get along just fine but what it means is that you get three fully grown British men clinging together like frightened mice following each other in a clump, not daring to separate. 

During the trip, the three go to the toilet together, buy bananas together (they don’t even dare to split up to buy different fruit). They walk this way together, they walk that way together. No doubt the togetherness given that it's togetherness by necessity must get really tough.

We pull into "Dali" at about 3.15pm or so. I then discover that as the Lonely Planet had warned, the bus has only taken me to the city of 下关 (Xia Guan) rather than to 古城 (Gu Cheng) - the Ancient City. 

I'm looking at the Lonely Planet now:

_The golden rule about getting to Dali by bus is to find out in advance whether your bus is for Dali or Xiaguan. Many buses advertised to Dali only go as far as Xiaguan. From here it's a 20 minute walk to the main guesthouses or you can take a horse cart for around RMB5._

Damnit. 

I am not sure why I didn't pay more attention except that I guess I assumed that the last hotel which has a really good reputation amongst backpackers would have warned me when they helped me book my bus ticket.

My own fault I know. The 3 Brits are in the same position. In my head, I’ve started thinking of them as Huey (blond guy who was the leader), Dewey (whiney one stomach problems who seemed to have everything) and Louie (guy with sunnies who just seemed to go along with what the other two do or say).

As I feared would happen, Huey, Dewey and Louie start following me around. I translate for them as some representatives for a guesthouse are at the station. I also tell them to catch the number 4 bus.

I cross the road, my 10kg backpack feeling heavier than usual and am then sent on a slightly wild goose chase by a number of local inhabitants. 

I ask a woman standing by the curb how to get to the Old City. She tells me that she’s going there too. 

Then a woman on a bike takes pity on me and stops, saying: "Look, you're in the wrong place - the stop is over there, it costs RMB1. I have no idea why you're all standing here the bus will never pick you up." 

It turns out the old lady I’d spoken to in the first instance is a peasant who lives quite far away and has no idea about the city whatsoever but just wanted to be helpful and tell me something – even if it was wrong.

So I walk to the number four bus stop followed by Huey, Dewey and Louis – my not so little, and definitely not cute, ducklings. 

Dewey has mild food poisoning and moans all the way. 

It’s too hot, I’m so tired, this bag is too heavy, China’s just too weird, Lao was also weird, I don't like this, I don't like that. 

The hilarious thing was that they’ve actually only been in China a week or so since leaving Lao. 

Random side note - one interesting thing I’ve noted. Yunnan Mandarin sounds a lot more like Mandarin than say Sichuan Mandarin does but weirdly enough, it sounds a little bit Vietnamese. Vietnamese, Thai, Khmer, Laotian and languages like that all have a sort of hiccoughey / gulpey sound and Yunnan Mandarin definitely has that sound but they are using Mandarin words. It's very interesting. Fortunately it's a lot easier to understand than Sichuan Mandarin.

Louis exclaims plaintively,"No one speaks English here! It's just weird!" I try very hard not to giggle.

They complain to me that people have the never to keep trying to speak to them in Chinese and that they find this incredibly annoying. They are _especially_ annoyed when they point to their phrasebook and the people keep replying to them in Chinese. “Don’t they realise we can’t speak Chinese?”

My Thought Bubble says: “It's a natural reaction though, even when you know the person can't understand, often you'll keep speaking your own language because it's how you express yourself.” I know that won’t go down well so I just nod given that I’m not sure what they want me to say.

It’s obvious that they’re pretty down on Chinese language, Chinese people … China. 

Part of me feels like suggesting to them that perhaps they ought to go back to England because it’s going to get a whole lot tougher. Anyway, they switch to arguing and bickering amongst themselves for a bit when they grew weary of complaining to me. As an outside, it looks to me like they’ve been together a lot longer than a week!

Four number 4 buses go past that are so packed full of passengers that they refuse to stop for us. 

The Brits then get really, really cranky and tell me that they are fed up of waiting for a bus and want to catch a cab. The only problem is that they don’t know how to say "Old City". 

“If you can flag a cab down, I'll tell the driver for you,” I tell them.

They wave a cab down and the driver tells me that it’s going to cost RMB40 to get to the Old Town as there’s a toll gate. 

“RMB40 versus RMB1?” I question the Ducklings. 

“Don’t care. Sick of waiting.” They all crowd into the cab where the driver grins like it’s his lucky day. I wave them goodbye and wish them luck as they drive away into the distance – probably still complaining to one another about something.

I continue to wait at the bus stop and start to get that weird feeling you get when you know something’s looking at you. I turn my head slightly and there’s an old woman with a bright blue and white cloth wrapped around her head and a jacket of deep pink staring at me with steady, unblinking curiosity. Her grand-daughter, standing by her side, is doing the same thing.

With a slightly wonky smile, I nod at them and we start talking. They tell me that they’re Bai Minority Tribespeople, who are native to this region. They asked me a lot of questions, all of which I answered to the best of my limited Chinese. They’re charming and refreshing company after Huey, Dewey and Louis.

Another number 4 bus finally arrives and this time I’m prepared and ready to act - managing to squeeze onto the crowded bus via the backdoor. 

The other passengers are remarkably good-natured and accommodating towards me given that me, my backpack and my front pack take up the room of 3 people. 

It’s possible that I’ve never been so squashed in my life as I am on this number four bus lumbering down the road towards the Old City. I have no fear about being robbed because my money is in a money sleeve tucked against my body beneath my clothing and if anyone cuts open my backpack, they’re likely to end up with a shoe or a bag of extremely dirty laundry...

This is a Bus of Skin Ailments. Fascinatingly, I don't think _anyone_ on this bus has a pure face of skin. Everyone is incredibly darkened by sunlight or wrinkled and weathered. On top of that there is an extremely large amount of scarring, acne and pockage. I guess life is very hard out here, with poor nutrition and limited medical treatment.

Pretty much everyone on this bus could have been an extra for the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in Star Wars or some random generic scene in an Indiana Jones movie. There are also numerous wicker baskets full of produce. No chickens or livestock though.

The trip takes us about half an hour in total and I finally stagger off the bus and make my way through the gates of the Old Town.

Dali is famous for being a walled city given that these days, very few of the former walled cities still have much of their walls remaining. Beijing still has the names that indicate that it was walled – West Gate, East Gate etc, but only fragments of walls exist. Dali still has its wall. The city reminds me a little of Hoi An, the UNESCO protected ancient Chinese city in Vietnam. There are cobblestoned streets, old style buildings and an interesting atmosphere. 

It's pretty but very touristy and extremely crowded – which I was not expecting at all, having envisaged a sort of wild, lawless deserted town ...

Yesterday I’d tried to book a room at _Jim's Guesthouse_ , which according to the Lonely Planet is a place run by a Tibetan guy. He had flatly refused to let me book a room in advance, telling me that there was no point. According to him, Dali had heaps of guesthouses and heaps of rooms. His implication was that it was a waste to book a room for me when I'd probably go somewhere else anyway. 

"I'm travelling on my own and I don't want to get there and have nowhere to stay."

"That won't happen," he had told me _very_ emphatically.

I guess it’s pretty obvious where _this_ tale of woe is heading.


	2. No Room At the Inn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I am most grateful for the kindness of strangers

When I finally get to the Guesthouse, Jim himself is standing before me. He’s a large, long-haired, wild-looking Tibetan guy with a ruddy complexion straight out of the tavern drinking scene from _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.

"No rooms" he tells me flatly. “Except in the dorm room.” He jerks a grubby thumb in the direction that I assume indicates the location of said dorm room.

“But I phoned you yesterday, you wouldn't let me book a room. You said there would be a lot of rooms!”

"Oh that was _you_." 

"Yes that was me! What am I supposed to do now?" I demand, trying very hard not to panic.

"You might try the _Tibetan Lodge_ down the road." he tells me coolly, without a trace of sympathy or patience in his face.

I clearly am not going to get any satisfaction here, so with a slightly dejected slump to my shoulders, I turn away from him and walk down the road. I make it a couple of hundred metres from the guesthouse when a guy comes running up to me, very breathless and earnest. He’s a tall, lanky man with fair skin, a mild face and glasses. He speaks with a very polite and educated English accent: "I just overheard you. My wife and I have a triple room and if you want you can have the spare bed."

I stop abruptly in my tracks, very touched because he is quite out of breath and has had to run to catch up with me so there has been quite an effort involved with his offer of assistance.

"No thanks, I'll keep looking. I was looking for a room of my own,” I reply, unable to believe how kind he is.

He’s not offended at all, just shrugs, smiles and returns to the guesthouse after wishing me well. 

I arrive at a guesthouse called the _Tibetan Lodge_ \- they have no rooms even dorm beds left but they are very kind to me and let me use their phone to try to book a room and even make phone calls for me to see if there are any rooms left anywhere else in Dali. 

Apparently as it’s the "Torch Festival" in Dali right now, it means that no beds can be had for love, money or Dali Cheese ... While the people at the Tibetan Lodge are incredibly nice, they are entirely unable to help me with my lack of lodgings.

I continue walking, trying a few more guesthouses … again, there’s nothing to be had. In sheer desperation and trying to control my sense of rising panic, I head back to Jim's Guesthouse, thinking that I’ll take up the English couple’s offer of their spare bed. What choice do I have? I can’t sleep in the street. I find myself hoping fervently that the offer is still open. Who knows how many other unlike solo travellers have found themselves in the same unfortunate situation?

As I approach _Jim’s Guesthouse_ again, there’s a very tall guy in faded jeans and a slightly ragged t-shirt standing in the doorway. Tall with an athletic build and a light golden tan, he towers over me rather intimidatingly. "Were you able to find a place to stay?" he asks me unexpectedly. He speaks in accented but precise and excellent English.

I don’t bother asking him how on earth he knows that I have accommodation problems. I guess I must have been a lot louder and more irate than I had intended when I was talking to Jim the Hulking Tibetan earlier.

"No, still looking,” I tell him with a very mournful air to my voice, no doubt looking as pathetic and sorry for myself as I feel.

His expression is extremely apologetic even though it’s in no way his fault. "I've only got one bed in my room unfortunately." His tones are clipped and educated. European for sure. Dutch? German? Although I notice that he has a very pleasant voice - not as clipped and abrupt as the German accent can frequently be.

"I just don't know what I'll do if I can't find a room - sleep in the street?" I ask rhetorically, looking like an angry ripe tomato given how hot and sweaty I am from the hours of walking around Dali streets. 

The tall European looks horrified and exclaims,"No way! If you still can't find a place come back here and look for me. You can have the bed and I'll sleep on the floor!" 

I can’t believe that he is making an offer like this to a complete and utter stranger. “That’s so kind of you. I really couldn’t - ”

“I mean it,” he tells me earnestly and I believe him.

I walk into the guesthouse which tries to push me towards a room on me that has two girls in it already. They show me the room and it’s absolutely tiny. The beds are set out in a very squashy circle in the room – laid foot to head with almost no room to move. There’s also no bathroom.

"That English couple said they had a spare bed in their room .... can I see it?" I ask.

I then realise that because the couple had "bought" the triple room including all 3 beds, the guesthouse was not going to 'sell' the third bed to anyone, including me. 

It appears that the lovely English couple must have also realised that this because they return to the front desk for the particular purpose of explaining to Jim that they have agreed I can have the bed and that he shouldn't charge me any additional money as they have already paid RMB120 for the room and that I will be paying _them_ RMB40 for the use of the room. They are so incredibly kind and generous that I want to cry at how lovely they are being to a complete and total stranger.

Although Jim appears amenable to the arrangement, as are the two girls, the scowling old woman standing behind Jim (presumably Mama Jim) is clearly extremely peeved at the arrangement given that I think she really wants me to cough up extra money to sleep in the spare bed in the crappy cramped room. 

To my relief, the English couple's room is much larger. Although the beds are laid out almost side by side in the room, the bed that they are offering me is at the far end of the room with a decent space between the beds. 

The bathroom is more than just a little bit scary so I duck out quickly to buy a pair of luridly pink plastic thongs (flip flops) to protect my poor feet from whatever lurks in the dank, dark mouldiness that is the bathroom. Chinese bathrooms are not great at the best of times – they’re definitely not great in places like this.

On the one hand I am intensely relieved because I have a place to sleep and my room-mates seem extremely kind and nice. They didn't have to offer their room to me and they definitely aren't the sort to eat my brain, in fact how on earth did they know that _I_ wasn't going be the one to eat _their_ brains?

What I’m worried about is that although I'm pretty sure I don't snore (much?)… I am almost sure I won't be able to sleep a wink with strangers in my room. I already have such terrible sleep patterns normally that I can imagine that sleep just ain't going to happen easily ... I guess I’ll just have to see how it goes. I really should just be glad I found a safe place to sleep.

Having finally satisfying myself that I do not have to sleep on the street or make that poor nice young German man sleep on the floor, I allow myself the luxury of a quick wander around the town.

The first stop, though is a net cafe called the _Space Café_ to let my friends and family know that I’ve arrived safely. The people are really friendly and they are playing my current favourite song by 伍百 Wu Bai called 突然的自我 Turan de ziwo – Suddenly Myself. 

I pluck up the courage to ask them to play it for me again and they not only oblige, they go on to play it _three_ more times for me and we sing along to the song, laughing and grinning in amusement.

There’s a little girl with glasses who is absolutely adorable. She’s Han Chinese with a cheeky smile. When I’ve finished writing my emails, given that I’ve been singing along with them to the Wu Bai song, one of the girls asks me if I want to go along with them for the lighting of their torch - since it's the torch festival in Yunnan. 

The eldest of the girls belongs to one of the Bai Minority Tribes people, but she tells me that all of them celebrate the festival - Bai People, Yi People and Han Chinese. 

According to the Lonely Planet, the origins of the torch festival can be traced back to the intrigues of the Nanzhao kingdom, when the wife of a man burned to death by the king eluded the romantic entreaties of the monarch by leaping into the fire.

I find this blurb online:

_During the festival, torches are erected in front of houses. At the entrance to the villages, a grand "torch tower," made of pine branches and dry firewood and standing more than 20 meters high, is decorated with fresh flowers and fruits._

_At last, the long-awaited moment comes. After dinner, as darkness casts its shadow, young and old, wearing their most ceremonial attire, rush excitedly to the "torch tower" square. Cheers and screams of delight burst from the lips of the excited crowd, while the soaring flames brighten the darkness of the night and warm everyone's heart._

_It really is an amazing sight the torches are as numerous as there are stars in the sky. On such a brilliant night, all the participants are intoxicated by the grand spectacle and the atmosphere of celebration. Dressed in splendid costumes bedecked with sparkling ornaments, young men and women sing and dance hand in hand around the bonfire to express their gratitude for a life of plenty and good wishes for the coming year._

People are supposed to light a torch and carry it back home – so every single house had a torch in front of it. Along the way, you are aim the torch at unfortunate passers-by. Everyone is also carrying bags of powder which they throw on the flame to make it blaze into higher and even more fierce flames. 

Everywhere I walk, people are walking with torches and throwing the powder and flaming each other. People seem to be having what appear to be full on fire fights. It’s a fairly terrifying sight to witness and I don’t even want to think about how many injuries take place during this festival.

On particularly dangerous element of the festival is when torchbearers pass the flame of the torch over the red papers around the doorway - the ones with Chinese sayings on them. Not surprisingly, the fire engines were passing on a regular basis. It seems incredibly dangerous - fire crackers and little kids playing with fire. 

Returning to the guest house is actually quite frightening – it’s like running the gauntlet - flames and torches everywhere. Even worse, as I quickly sneak around a corner to avoid the firefights, a tiny little tot with an aerosol leapt leaps out at me exultantly and sprays a large quantity of foam all over me. Although quite funny, it’s also very annoying.

Nonetheless, the torch festival is an amazing sight to witness and it was fortunate coincidence to have arrived in town during the festival – limited lodgings aside. 

Walking back to the guest house, an equally gorgeous sight for me is that when I look at above the ancient Chinese roofs and see the mountains in the distance covered in mist. It looks entirely like a movie set or a classical painting – breathtaking and stunning. 

Also, as I am standing in the middle of the road looking around, I hear a sound, turn around and a herd of goats is running down the road headed straight for me being herded by a young goatherd boy. After a moment’s pause, I get out of the way before I am trampled and the bleating goats run past me. It’s a very surreal moment and a little amusing as well… I’m really here, standing in Dali, China… mountains behind me, an ancient city before me and a herd of goats running past me …

I’m already lying in bed when my room-mates return from their evening out. I find out that the man’s name is Pete and he’s from England. Her name’s Lindsay and she’s from Scotland. 

“Thanks again for letting me share your room.” I add jokingly,”I sure hope you're not on honeymoon or something."

"Actually we are." he replies. He’s very amused at my horrified response. They both assure me that it’s the fourth month of a one year honeymoon trip so I’m not really interrupting anything.

As we lie in bed, we talk about _Neighbours_ , Harry Potter, China and Australia for about half an hour. As expected, I don’t fall asleep but I lie there in the dark smiling because they’re such nice people.

Early the next morning, they bid me goodbye as they head off to Laos, letting me take over the room. All three beds for RMB110 but I'd rather pay for the whole room than have 2 weirdos come in as I have no guarantee that the next people will be as nice.

I spend the day relaxing although it turns out to be bordering on boring. I’m smack in the middle of the standard backpacker route with the dread-locked, hemp, tie-dyed outfit brigade … With a whole day to kill, there’s nothing to do except walk around the town several times. 

I'm also not that impressed with the food despite how much everyone raves about the Western cafes here. I find myself hoping that Lijiang is better. It's not that Dali isn't nice, it's just a bit disappointing. Also, where there are more Western tourists, racism kicks in and the Chinese people are nicer to Westerners than they are to Asians.

After a day wandering around aimlessly I head back to my room and lie alone in the dark. There’s a Monster Mosquito buzzing around my room. It whirs and whizzes and is quite large and bites me three times, once on the forehead. Eventually I get up to put on some Aerogarde - even on my forehead. Unfortunately, at one point in the night, I kick the blanket off my leg so it bites my calf. Eventually I sink into a restless, patchy, mosquito-bitten sleep.


	3. The Road to Lijiang 丽江

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I travel to my next ancient Chinese city and re-encounter someone I never actually thought I'd meet up with again.

At 8am, I board the bus for a three-hour journey to Lijiang. It’s a medium sized bus and I am squashed in at the back. 

Fortunately, the bus has a high ceiling and is quite well-ventilated so I don’t have too many difficulties in terms of breathing. The only problem is that the very grotty looking girl on my left keeps falling asleep, putting her very not-clean looking hair on my shoulder and then drooling down her shirt front and almost on me... 

Finally, I put my dictionary on my shoulder and then when we go over a bump or around a corner, I use that as an opportunity to nudge her away from me slightly. Eventually she notices because after the five-minute pit stop, she asks me to sit on her left not her right.

The two people in front of me - a young woman and a little boy are pretty much throwing up continuously for the second hour. Thank goodness I don't get car sick or the sounds alone would have been enough to do me in.

I close my eyes … I'm not sleeping but I use it as a method not to see what's going on around me and to try to zone out to a better place. 

Upon arrival in Lijiang, I feel completely and utterly _lost_. 

My initial feeling at seeing the ancient city is a sinking feeling of profound disappointment. At first blush it looks even more modern and built up than Dali - kind of like what a Chinese city would look like if Disney built it for one of its Disney parks - full of stalls selling kitsch Oriental souvenirs. 

I hate myself for sounding like a jaded China tourist when I know that I'm not. Some people get sick of palaces and museums, I don't but I do get sick of seeing the same old quasi-Oriental wares no matter where I go - be it Cambodia, Vietnam, China or Hong Kong. It's just all so uniform and unexceptional.

Fortunately, the disappointment fades rapidly as I leave the main squares. Upon plunging into the side streets of Lijiang though, I discover that they are charming, lovely and far more authentic. 

The only down side is that the old city is absolutely crawling with tourists. I can't move an inch to the left, right or forwards without stepping into someone's holiday photo. It's both humorous and annoying at the same time as I imagine how many poor Chinese families have my silly face inadvertently photobombing their souvenir moment.

As I’m asking a shop assistant for directions on how to get to the Lijiang Ancient City International Youth Hostel, a man walks past and tells me that he’ll show me how to get there. 

I fall into step beside him for a moment but then discover that he’s a tour guide touting for a client so I tell him very firmly,”I'm tired, I don't want a tour guide, I don't even know how long I'll be here.”

He ignores me and keeps babbling at me and I retort: "Look I'm not listening to anything you say. My bag is very heavy, I'm tired and I'm just going to find my hotel."

He keeps walking with me and proceeds to lead me to the wrong hotel, albeit with a similar name. By then, I’ve been walking for more than half an hour in the sun with my heavy bags. 

“Look, thanks but no thanks – I’m going to find my own way.” To my irritation, he continues following me and talking, explaining this bridge, that wall, these stones. 

"Look I really don't need or want a guide. I am not listening to you, in fact at this point I don't remember much Chinese at all." This is one of those times when I really should have pretended not to be able to speak Chinese. The Westerners get pestered to buy things but at least they wouldn’t have been subjected to this constant barrage of verbiage.

He then points me in the direction of the hotel and I try to lose him by ducking down another street and walk as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I can't walk that fast with my pack though and he catches up with me.

When we arrive at the hotel, he tries to speak in Naxi to the boy at the front counter. I know he’s saying something along the lines of: "I should get a commission for bringing her here."

The boy tells him flatly in Mandarin: "I don't speak Naxi." Relief floods over me.

Naxi is a Minority Tribe dialect - and the Naxi are the people who live in this region. The boy gives me a key so I could check out if the room is acceptable.

The annoying man follows me and said: "Give me RMB10".

"Why should I do that?"

"Because I walked with you for a long time."

"First, I never asked you to do that. Two I asked you to leave and three you got me more lost anyway."

I check out the room and he is still hassling me for RMB10. "There is absolutely no way I am giving you any money." I’m furious and almost shouting by then because I’m hot, tired and very cranky.

He finally leaves me alone and I return to the front desk and ask the boy at the front counter to swap my room number. "That guy saw what room I'm in – I don’t feel safe. Is it possible to change rooms to another room?”

He’s a nice guy and gives me a key to another room up a set of stairs. I am very relieved when I see the bathroom. It’s a Chinese toilet but it’s clean. The room is quite cute with two mattresses on a raised section of the floor. Almost Japanese in appearance.

After that somewhat unsettling introduction to the city, I decide to console myself with food and make my way to a café called the Well Bistro which has a row of books along one wall. After selecting a novel called "Haunted Ground" by Erin Hart, I sit down at a table.

After perusing the menu, I order a "Naxi Omlette" and "Naxi sandwich" which is goat's cheese, tomato and fried egg between two pieces of _baba_. _Baba_ is a Lijiang local specialty food, being thick flatbreads made of wheat. It’s very tasty and the bread has a really interesting and delicious aroma. I sit alone reading the book I’ve selected for the next three hours.

While there, I have a brief conversation with an 18 year old Australian girl from Tasmania who after graduating from high school went to Guangzhou of all places to teach English. She absolutely hated Guangzhou but now that her contract is over, is backpacking around China and enjoying that much more than the teaching. 

She acts and sounds exactly like a woman I know named Symone. I am always freaked out by the similarity of people I meet – across races and countries. It’s like there’s only a finite number of faces, voices and mannerisms in the world.

As she’s staying in dorms, she's meeting a lot of people - younger and nicer people than the ones I tend to meet. It's a trade-off I know, but I really just can't bring myself to stay in a dorm. Besides, how would I have coped going without sleep for my entire trip? My sleep patterns are patchy enough as they are. She tells me that she’s read the latest Harry Potter and in response to my urgent questioning, reluctantly discloses the name of the main character who has been killed off.

I’m in complete and utter shock.

She doesn’t have her copy of Harry Potter anymore. Apparently, she sold it to her friend for RMB100 and a bag of marijuana.

She then tells me about a hilarious Australian woman she met on the train who wrote _everything_ down in a journal. When asked why she didn't just do highlights i.e. wasn't it awfully boring to transcribe her life, she apparently said: "Well I don't mean to sound self-important, but there are a lot of people who live their lives through my life experiences..." 

I treat myself to a cup of coffee, and feeling relaxed, finish reading my book. There’s something surreal about reading a novel about a murder in the Irish countryside while sitting in a café in Yunnan Province, China. As is usually the case, the shop assistant in the coffee shop is much nicer to the Western customers than to people who look like me, but I’ve learned to deal.

After that I go for a walk through the town and buy my bus ticket back to Kunming. I also head into the Mandarin Bookstore and buy a copy of the latest Harry Potter. It's big and heavy but now that I know what I know, I can’t possibly wait much longer before reading it.

The blurb about the 纳西 Naxi in the Lonely Planet is interesting:

_Lijiang has been the base of the 286,000 strong Naxi minority for about the last 1400 years. The Naxi descend from the ethnically Tibetan Qiang tribes and lived until recent in matrilineal families. Since local rulers were always male it wasn't truly matriarchal, but women still seem to run the show, certainly in the old part of Lijiang._

_The Naxi matriarchs maintained their hold over the man with flexible arrangements for love affairs. The azhu (friend) system allowed a couple to become lovers without setting up joint residence. Both partners would continue to live in their respective homes; the boyfriend would spend the nights at his girlfriend's house but return to live and work at his mother's house during the day. Any children to the couple belonged to the woman who was responsible for bringing them up. The man provided support, but once the relationship was over, so was the support. Children lived with their mothers, so no special effort was made to recognise paternity. Women inherited all property, and disputes were adjudicated by female elders._

_There are strong matriarchal influences in the Naxi language. Nouns enlarge their meaning when the word for female is added; conversely the addition of the word for male will decrease the meaning. For example, 'stone' plus female conveys the idea of a boulder, stone plus male conveys the idea of a pebble. [Comment from Koala: Interesting yes? Contrast to French or German when the presence of only one male in a group of females even if he is 1:20 will cause the "they" word to be the male "they" word.]_

_Naxi women wear blue blouses and trousers covered by a blue or black apron. The T-shaped traditional cape not only stops the basket worn on the back from chafing, but also symbolises the heavens. Day and night are represented by the light and dark halves of the cape; seven embroidered circles symbolise the stars. Two larger circles, one on each shoulder, are used to depict the eyes of a frog, which until the 15th century was an important god to the Naxi. With the decline of animist beliefs, the frog eyes fell out of fashion, but the Naxi still call the cape by the original name 'frog-eye sheepskin'._

In the main square there are a lot of Naxi women singing and dancing. I'm not sure if this is something that they would normally do or if this is all for the benefit of tourists.

If it's for the tourists, then it's all a bit sad especially given that I heard a rude Chinese man commenting sneeringly today while watching them dancing: "What a simple dance, so primitive." 

Given that he is most likely one of the millions of Chinese men who spit in the street and litter with impunity, I kind of feel like throwing something at him. I know I'm of Han Chinese origin but it really pisses me off sometimes how Han Chinese look down on all ethnic minorities - calling them backward, primitive and savage. True, the minorities hate the Han too but I fail to see why the Han Chinese are any more civilised and upper class than the minorities. It's a matter of education and training rather than the blood in your veins. Yes, he really annoyed me. I felt like saying: "Let's see you dance then, Mr Civilised Han Man - but you'll have to dump that cigarette butt on the ground, oh you were going to anyway...".

I am such a bitch.

I do love seeing the minority costumes - they're really bright and beautiful. Unfortunately, a lot of what you can buy in the shops is grossly overpriced and to my disappointment, some of it isn't locally made - "Made in India"? The mind boggles. 

In any case, as I said it looks lovely. The shade of blue that they wear are very deep and compelling. I walk through the streets being jostled by people against little food stalls filled with inexplicable and mysterious food - also buckets upon buckets of braised chicken feet!

As the sky darkens, I wander around the town which is getting increasingly crowded. I buy some small silly gifts and postcards given that I intend to spend tomorrow in cafes with picturesque views lolling around drinking coffee and writing postcards. 

I get lost about four times in the dark which is actually quite a problem given that I seem to have a mild case of food poisoning with some stomach pains. I’ve drunk some chrysanthemum tea to soothe my stomach but there’s nothing more stressful than having food poisoning and being lost in a crowded, dark Lijiang street at night with no clue where your hotel is … Fortunately for me, I was able to find a public toilet while lost … but there’s no need to go into details of what transpired …

When I finally find my way back to the hotel, I ask the guy at the front desk if the hotel provides towels. He tells me that they rent them out at RMB5 a pop. I have my own towel of course (part of the reason why my pack is heavy) but I prefer to use hotel towels if possible because it means I don't have to cart around a damp towel.

"RMB5????" I demand in disbelief. "How can you charge me so much for a towel! My room is already so expensive." I tease him so he tells me that if I promise to tell no one and give the towel back to him immediately after showering, then he won’t charge me a rental fee.

“Deal!” I declare, grinning at my co-conspirator.

*

I wake up in the morning after the best night of sleep I've had so far on the trip. The mattress on the floor seems to have done the trick - firm but not too hard instead of weird, lumpy, squeaky springy things. Also clean with no bad smells - oh the bliss…

To my relief, my stomach feels quite stable today. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to cope with the next leg of my journey if I was feeling sick.

I decide to go to the _Prague Café_ for breakfast and bring all of my postcards, little gifts and things with the intention of:

1\. writing cards and posting them in the morning  
2\. finding a cafe with a bookshelf and lingering with a book

Walking into the café, I look around for a table where I can sit by myself to do my thing. As I sit down, I look up and blink for a moment as the guy sitting there on his own looks very familiar. 

After a moment’s blankness, I realise that it’s the nice German guy from Jim’s Guesthouse in Dali who had offered to sleep on the floor so that I could sleep in his bed. I feel a little embarrassed as I remember that I didn’t thank him for his kind offer because he had shipped out of Dali first thing the next day. I really am on the Chinese tourist track ... 


End file.
